5.11.2010

“The Wednesday after May Day: Η προσπάθεια συνεχίζεται”

A poem for the massive protests led byworking people in Greece last week.They continue to resist a government“bail out” of banks with revenueobtained by cutting their jobs and benefits.The AP and the AFP reported marcherschanted "Thieves! Thieves!" and“The struggle will never end!"

Today I saw a tanager fly its black-winged red flag.I stood watching in the rain, waiting for its whistle.The radio had announced finance ministers to consult,sounded quite deliberate. But the TV split realities:On the right, a money trader, hands over eyes, hidfrom the crevice of loss his numbers were falling into.On the left, a sound I’d never heard, a firey whooshlike a furnace, some kind of engine pounding, unisonrhythm, a crowd in Athens chanting to advance,retreat, advance against a thin grey fence of police,their barbed arms. The people outnumber the police,they raise fists again, again, to break down that fenceThe world watches the line bend, the people createa rift, the numbers shift, the people shout no, no,they won’t work til they die so the banks can live,corporations into corpses is their cry, and the state?On the asphalt blackened by rain, green-wingedmaple seeds scatter the same small mathematicalsymbol, the angle reads lesser than > or greater than < Repeated by the millions, the meaning depends onwhere they stand and what they mean by equal.